Turtlediary is a one stop shop for learning games and more for early elementary students. Choose from various categories: games, videos, stories, and arts and crafts. Included under each heading is an age range and description of each activity. Be sure to scroll down near the bottom of the page to find lists of all learning games sorted by subject, sort further by choosing a grade level from preK through 2nd grade. For full access to this site, you must register (which does cost a fee). However, most of the interactives are currently available for FREE to guests with no registration.This site includes advertising.

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Use this site as a resource for learning games, videos, and read-aloud books. Demonstrate the activities on your interactive whiteboard; then create a link on classroom computers for students to try on their own. Share this link with parents on your classroom website or newsletter as a resource for practicing math and reading skills at home. Use videos from the site to introduce science lessons and concepts.

This area of the VideoJug video sharing site offers many resources sorted by school subject. Choose from math, poetry, cool experiments or other educational topics. Search for items using the search bar or sort videos by most viewed, newest, or hot now categories. Click on the thumbnail link to view the full video and view text below the video link. Many videos include text of the content below the video window so you can recap important steps or ideas. Register using your email and a password to save favorite videos. There is a short advertisement at the beginning of each video. Though the overall site is not in Flash, the videos are. Note that this education area is a part of a wider Videojug sharing site that includes topics not appropriate for schools ("Love and Dating," etc.). Control access if using the site with young people. Find links to specific video pages by clicking Embed at top left of the video and copying the link or the embed code.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Search the site for videos to use on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) with students. Share direct links to specific videos on your classroom website or blog for students to view at home. Think about using Grokit/Answers reviewed here, to put questions with the videos viewed at home. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create videos on any topic using the videos as examples. Share the videos created on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here.

Around the world in one website? See the world using photo tours in Google maps thanks to this blog post explaining how. Enter 3D photo scenes to immerse you in nearly 15,000 popular sites and cultures from around the world. Find blog tools and useful links to make your visit more interesting. This site works best in FireFox or Chrome, and you will need to download Google Maps' web GL.This site includes advertising.

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Use photo tours in Google to expand your classroom into the world. The easy tutorial flies you off immediately into the world without budget, permission slips, or travel. Social studies and history come alive in the actual settings. Examine the real look at world cultures. Bring into a world language class for a field trip. In language arts, explore settings from around the world and see how they influence the story. Look at folktales from around the world with their settings. Current events come alive and meaningful through your visit. In language arts classes or math classes, plan an imaginary trip to a different place. Google photo tours make it concrete and allow you to experience the world. Transport your students to another place, and see if they can play Where in the World. In art classes, study architecture or nature to influence art pieces. Science classes can explore landscapes, earth surfaces, natural resources, mapping skills, and habitats. Now your classroom has no walls.

Explore and interact with 3-D polyhedra. Several sections are available on the site for exploration including a starter activity, main session, and plenary (lesson conclusion activity). Hover your mouse over each of the large icons to view information about each activity, then click to access each section. As you explore the site, there is no option to use the back arrow to return to the home screen. Simply refresh the page to return.

In the Classroom

All activities on the site are perfect to use as an introduction or review for polyhedra on your interactive whiteboard. Teacher notes and student worksheets are also available. After viewing as a class, allow students to explore on their own using classroom computers. Use ideas from the lesson plan to supplement current classroom activities. Print polyhedra shapes for students to create; then use them to develop a math writing activity to display on a bulletin board. Make holiday math decorations or student-made review manipulatives (for any subject) using the printables. Have them write a question on each face and "roll" the polyhedron to respond to the questions. Art teachers can use the printables for many craft projects.

Get ready for some entertainment, and enjoy learning math directly from kids with this wonderful wiki! Choose from math topics, listed on the right-hand toolbar, to find lively and engaging videos made by students explaining math concepts such as decimals, place value, geometry, and much more. Add your own embedded math movies by following the directions included on the home page. A huge thanks goes out to Paula N. for sharing this resource during an OK2Ask'''''® Energizing Math session!

In the Classroom

Search the wiki for videos to use on your interactive whiteboard as an introduction to new concepts or individually to reinforce learning. Share a link to videos on your classroom website or blog for students (and parents) to view at home. Challenge cooperative learning groups to create their own videos about math. Share the videos on a site such as TeacherTube reviewed here, and add to the Student Math Movies wiki.

Practice elementary math skills using Shockwave activities provided to support the Saxon Math series. Although intended for use with Saxon Math, these activities work well as a supplement for any math curriculum. Sorted by grade level, these activities include the Saxon Math lesson they follow. Especially interesting are the enrichment problems provided at each grade level. These links provide three sets of enrichment problems: one for individual work, one for group work, and one for use in a family setting.

In the Classroom

These activities are perfect for use on your interactive whiteboard or on classroom computers to practice math skills. Be sure to look at activities for the grade above and below yours for remediation or enrichment. Share a link to activities on your classroom website or newsletter for practice at home.

Practice with symmetry by completing or creating symmetric patterns. Select from three levels of difficulty then click and drag boxes to create the mirror image. Check for accuracy using the "check" button. Create a pattern using either a vertical or horizontal line of symmetry then check for accuracy. Be sure to check out the suggestions for expanding the activities at the bottom of the page. Included are prompts for writing and other activities.

In the Classroom

This activity is perfect for use on interactive whiteboards and classroom computers as a center activity. Have one student create one side of a symmetric figure, and have another student make the mirror image. Ask the first student to check for accuracy. Provide one part of a symmetric figure and have students recreate it using this program. Have students reproduce creations using graph paper and use as a classroom display. Art teachers will also want to try the symmetry activities to build visual design skills or to design letter forms and shapes that have symmetry.

Find some creative, entertaining, and downright amazing videos, worksheets, and more. See how to teach math (geometric shapes, money, addition, and more) using Angry Birds. Learn about place value using a swim noodle! Use stacking cups to learn phonics, and much more! There are also printable behavior charts, long vowel worksheets, and a lot more printable pages available FREE. This is one creative teacher offering a multitude of free ideas and printables. If your school blocks YouTube, it is worth opening this site at home to see the great videos.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

If you can't re-create some of the lessons demonstrated on the videos, share the video clips on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Not all videos are created to share with students. Some videos are more instructional ideas for teachers - so preview before you share. Scroll through the many videos for some ideas to spice up your primary grades classroom. If your district blocks YouTube, then they may not be viewable. You could always view the videos at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid reviewed here to download the videos from YouTube.

This cool tool, developed especially for older elementary to middle school students, allows you to create simple animations. You are provided with 40 frames. Click to choose your color, brush size, and more. The site includes the options to copy a frame, draw with a pencil instead of a brush, save, undo, clear and start over, and more. This is a simple to use tool. More in-depth instructions are provided on the site. Animations are saved as a .gif file. Read the tips on the home page to learn how to open your downloaded .gif.This site includes advertising.

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This site is useful for both teachers and students. During the first day of school, create a simple animation to share with your class. Highlight information about yourself, class rules, highlights from the year, and more. Create math animations showing different geometric shapes on 2-3 slides (just click to copy a frame, rather than remaking the slide) and giving the students a chance to guess the shape before the answer is provided on the next slide. Challenge students to create their own animations "introducing themselves" to the class. Students could also create animations to demonstrate what they have learned about a piece of literature, a science unit, social studies theme or unit, or more. Save the students' work and share the animations on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Challenge your gifted students to create animations about their in-depth interests or curriculum concepts they have pretested out of so others in the class can learn from them. This tool is simple enough for bright students in early elementary to navigate on their own, a real asset when your gifted ones are working alone while you teach others.

The Dayton Regional STEM Center offers lessons, units, and curriculum materials in STEM subjects for grades K-12. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math resources are abundant at this center for hands-on STEM! Primarily it is a curriculum resource for teaching. Search by grade level, subject, or industry. There are captivating hook videos about power and propulsion, sensors, manufacturing, humans and medicine, and air vehicles. Lesson ideas are complete and well thought out. Some have downloadable activities, some are video clips, some are tangible hands on activities, but all are thought provoking. If your district blocks YouTube, then the video clips may not be viewable. You could always view the videos at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid reviewed here to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Bookmark and save this site as a resource for STEM lessons in your classroom. Use this site as a starting point for individual or group projects or differentiating lessons in your classroom. Search this site for some new ideas to implement in your classroom. Share the Student tab on your class website for students to explore several "kid friendly" topic such as Fish-y Gardening, Pirate Race, Slime Time, Engineer Girl, Build a Bot, and more. Students who complete one of the "kid friendly" projects at home could develop a presentation using a tool like Zoho Show (similar to PowerPoint, but easier and free) - reviewed here), or a multimedia presentation to share with the class. For tools and ideas about creating multimedia presentations see one of many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here.

Find interactives aimed at Pre-K through elementary. Each activity is labeled with the subject and level. Some games include choices of level of difficulty or skills to practice. Some of the topics include recognizing colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. There are also many keyboarding/typing practice activities, counting, holidays, and more. A few of the games are more entertainment than educational, but searching by level and subject avoids these. Although most games are in English, there is a large component of the site in Spanish (click the flag). American English speakers may notice some slight spelling differences in the British English on this site.This site includes advertising.

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Create a link to the site on classroom computers for students to use a skills game as a center. Project appropriate activities on your interactive whiteboard for students to do as a class or as a learning center. Share a link to the site with parents through your classroom website or newsletter for practice at home.

Discover a reorganized, teacher-packaged collection of Nova resources for bringing science, technology, and engineering to the classroom. Find standards based, classroom resources based on programs from Nova and other PBS programs. There are teacher guides, teacher interactives, and teacher videos. Topics include anthropology, archaeology, earth science, engineering, environmental science, forensic science, geography, health science, history, life science, math, paleontology, physical science, science and society, space science, and technology. At the time of this review, the website is still in BETA version and is not all inclusive in each subject. Find a TV programming schedule to help planning and resource gathering.This site includes advertising.

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Enjoy the interactives, videos, and text together on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Use selected activities as a center (station). Include as resources for your curriculum. Use as a model to make a wiki for your current topic of study for a group project or classroom project. Not familiar with wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through. Use this format to spice up your classroom blog.

Flake Pad is a very simple little website that lets you create geometric snowflakes using basic shapes and a grid. To make the flake, choose a shape and click a spot on the grid. You can add as many or as few shapes as you like to your flake. View the completed flake off the grid for a screen shot then include it in other projects or print using the print button on the site.

In the Classroom

Flake Pad is a great site to help students understand symmetry. Any time students click a space on the grid, the shape will appear on multiple points on the grid. Use Flake Pad on an interactive whiteboard and have students identify lines of symmetry on the flake. With the pointer tool on Flake Pad, students can drag the shapes they have created to different points. Have students in the audience describe what happens to the flake as you move the shapes.

At 101 Questions, look at the image or video, and then write a question for the picture. The question can only be 140 characters total. You can also click to skip a picture. Submit your own picture or video, and get points for the perplexity it inspires, or even join the top 10 lists. Save images to your favorites and classify by tags using your membership. Note that the public can participate so some responses may not be appropriate for younger viewers. Preview and monitor or have an adult operate the site together.

In the Classroom

Creative fluency begins here! Set up a whole class account. Use this site in language arts: discover main idea, details, cause and effect, or even an inspirational writing prompt. Find ways to group images together based on characteristics or attributes. Use in gifted or enrichment situations, for inspiration for problem-based learning. Sequence the images to find ways to form a logical plot. Find ways to make Perplexors out of the given image. In math, write short word problems to accompany images or videos. Find ways to illustrate vocabulary definitions with examples and non-examples. As a morning work challenge, find questions, details, or even other questions. As a writing challenge, look for the image that conveys the mood or feeling you are trying to convey. In science, submit examples to illustrate scientific concepts. Use to generate scientific method style questions based on the given image. In social studies, find images to convey feelings represented by the time being studied. Challenge students to make a historical statement or political statement by finding and adding to an appropriate image. ESL/ELL students can use this site to help acquire conversation/questioning skills. In world language class, have students generate questions in their new language, even if they do not post them. In art, find mood, theme, style, or self expression images. Be sure to monitor the blog content. Put similar content on your own classroom blog. Challenge students to create their own 101 question images or videos to share on your class blog, inviting viewers to respond with questions in the comments.

Blog your way into the latest social technology using Edublogs. Use the free service to set up a blog as a student, teacher, or campus. This education friendly tool avoids some of the "public interaction" that can offer inappropriate content. Upgrade to more advanced features, to include more options. The additional information on blogging makes this site very valuable even if you already have a blogging platform. Find a plethora of advice, tutorials, pdfs, and lesson plans for blogging. This site is a great reference site for all who are beginning to use blogs, or even look for more varied and effective ways to log with students, or even other classes. Compare this tool to other free blogging tools mentioned in TeachersFirst's Blog Basics for the Classroom . This is a device-agnostic tool, available on the web but also available for free as both an Android and iOS app. Use it from any device or move between several devices and still access your work. App and web versions vary slightly.This site includes advertising.

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Save this site as a favorite for all of your blogging needs. Find very informative instructions on blogging, and follow the student blogging challenge lesson plans. ) Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have. Peruse through the various subjects and discover how other teachers use blogging in their classrooms. Using the given PDFs on blogging start up, parent guidelines, incorporating into subject areas, and adapt to make them suitable for you. Look at a variety of examples to help devise your own unique style to meet your students' needs.

Practice spatial awareness, logic, and reasoning skills with this Tetris site. Choose a level and click play to begin. Actions are controlled by the use of arrow keys on the computer keyboard and directions are included by clicking on the game surface. Progress through levels by successful completion of building lines with Tetris blocks. Game status is shown including lines created and total score.

In the Classroom

Help students develop computer skills and reasoning skills through playing this game. Tetris teaches visual thinking and two-dimensional awareness very helpful for geometric reasoning. Create a classroom chart and challenge students to post their highest scores and levels achieved. Have students write journals describing how they feel as they play the game, and strategies used to progress through levels. Display this site on an interactive whiteboard to use as a learning station.

Create and design your very own robot. Choose different features to add from options on the site: heads, legs, arms, body, and objects. Drag the objects to where you want them. You can stretch, rotate, and color each piece. For examples and ideas, a gallery of the last 50 robots created and submitted is available for viewing. You can submit your robot to the site. An email address is required. You can also email it to yourself so you can keep the url. Or simply take a screen shot to save the robot (Shift+command+4 on a Mac or PrntScrn key to COPY the image on Windows.) PASTE the screenshot into a document or slide.

In the Classroom

Demonstrate how to use the site on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Allow students to explore and experiment on their own. This site would be great for teaching adjectives. Have the class create robots then write descriptions. Then have the class try to match each robot to the written descriptions. Use the created robots as a story starter for creative writing assignments.

Practice finding shapes based on a given description with this geometry challenge. Listen to the directions, then click on the shape described. If correct, the shape changes color; an incorrect guess prompts you to try again. Two different activities are included. When complete, a message tells how much time you took to complete both tasks and your accuracy rate.

In the Classroom

Use this site on classroom computers as a math center. Challenge students to record completion time and accuracy percentage each time played in an effort to improve each time. Display the site on your interactive whiteboard (or projector) when teaching basic geometric shapes. After the description is given ask students to name the shape given. Take advantage of incorrect student responses to compare and contrast shapes. Share this link on your class website for students to practice both in and out of the classroom.

Find elementary level math and science inquiry based lesson plans on this simple website. Choose math or science, then a grade level - kindergarten through 6th grade. Each lesson plan is very thorough and includes essential questions, content standards, differentiation strategies, lesson expansion suggestions, and downloads for student materials. At the time of this review, not all grade levels had both math and science lessons available.

Here you will find a "kid-appropriate" search tool featuring countless general topics: Facts & Reference, Computers/The Internet, The Arts, Strange & Mysterious, Hot Topics, The World, Science & Math, Reading, Writing, Speaking, Nature, and several others. Within each of the main topics are subtopics. For example, in the Classroom section you will find English, Foreign Langauges, Math, History, Reference Tools, Shapes, Woodwork, Colors, Art, Religion, Philosophy, Social Studies, and Homework Help. There is a ton here to explore! The information includes articles and images/photos.

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Help students learn about narrowing and refining research by demonstrating this site on a projector or interactive whiteboard. As you start a project, take the time to SHOW how to use this tool to save time and find appropriate resources. Allow students to explore this site on their own finding relevant information from the various topics. If time permits, have students research a specific topic and create a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here.